It’s Tuesday night, but in some ways it feels a little like a Sunday evening–that feeling of a great weekend under your belt, good times had, but the small gray cloud of tomorrow’s responsibilities hanging overhead. However, instead of the usual Monday morning blues of having to leave the weekend behind, we’re instead a bit sad to be leaving White Cliff Organic Brewery and our wonderful hosts, the Trigg Family. Over the past 10 days we’ve really settled in at the brewery, and have thoroughly enjoyed working with the Triggs. It’s going to be hard for our next WWOOF experience to live up to this one! However, if we don’t leave now we may be tempted to never leave! We wrapped up our last day of “work” today–Joanie spent the day painting and cleaning chillers, while I wrapped up my mold removal project on the outside of the function center, helped unload the new shipment of grains, and did a bit of weedwacking. It was a good days work rewarded by a few beers. It’s good to know that we’ll be able to catch up with the Triggs again in Wellington at the end of the month–we’ve signed on to help out with a beer festival there at the end of February. The timing works out perfect–we need to be in Wellington the first week of March to see Old Crow Medicine Show on their first ever New Zealand tour! Woohoo!
Speaking of beer festivals. we had an incredible time at the beer and wine festival that we worked this past weekend. It was held at Okurukuru Winery right on the coast south of New Plymouth. The winery is set on a series of hills that overlook a beautiful stretch of coastline. You can see Mt. Taranaki, New Plymouth, and miles upon miles (or kilometers upon kilometers) of beautiful blue ocean. A number of other wineries and food vendors set up booths at the festival, and there was also a nice variety of delicious food (including one of my new favorites–biltong). And, of course, we were there selling Mike’s Ale and Lager to the thirsty crowd.
It was the perfect day for a festival–sunny and warm, the live music was good, and folks seemed pretty eager to have a cold one, or two, or three as they danced around. So, we spent the day pouring beers, drinking beers (what better way to advertise, right?), and watching people who drank beers. This was big fun! We saw, among other things, several very sunburned people, an unsunburned but very bare ass of a man whose mates pulled his pants down, and a few people who must have been very tired because they fell asleep lying halfway into the bushes. What an interesting experience being on the other side of things for a change! There was also a “fashion” show which consisted of folks from the crowd strutting their stuff on stage–I’m still not sure if this is something they signed up to do, or something their friends signed them up for. Either way it was entertaining.
As good as all of the beer drinking and pouring was, our highlight of the festival had to be the “extreme” helicopter ride that we took. For a small fee, we went for a 15-20 minute ride along the coast, over the hills and New Plymouth, and around the festival site. This was not the average helicopter ride though. We took off in a flash and went straight up and then turned hard and dove toward the sea. The pilot did what was probably the closest thing you can do to a flip in a helicopter, and it felt sort of like being on a roller coaster. Joanie lucked out and got to sit in the front seat next to the pilot. She had a headset on, which came in handy when the pilot pointed out the naked guy sunbathing, who he then proceeded to buzz past closely. Once we were back on the ground we went back to the beer booth, but watched many more flights zip overhead. The festival seemed to be a big success–we sold all the beer we brought with us. Hopefully we provided some help and didn’t drink all the profits. We can’t wait to see what the Wellington festival brings!
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I seriously don’t think that I can read any more of your blog. I’m dying over here. Will I ever get the opportunity to have an adventure like you guys are having? Maybe I should re-prioritize.
Tiffany